Its Not The End of The World As We Know It…But I Still Don’t Feel Fine

So. Hey.

Its officially been about 6 weeks since I started on medication for my depression/anxiety and its been…interesting.

Let’s review shall we?

Week 1. Realize caffeine gives me the shakes. Expel it from my life. Despair.

The Good Old Days

Overall? Not bad. I can handle this.

Week 2: Hot flashes. Like…seriously.

General nausea and overall ickiness.

And I can’t drink alcohol. Because it might make me want to punch people or something.

And I’m sleepy…ALL THE TIME*

Me on the way to work:

Me at work:

Me as soon as I get home from anywhere. At any time:

 

Me on the weekends:

At least I’m well rested? Oh wait. I’m not. Because somehow when I wake up after sleeping for ten hours I still manage to feel like I’ve been awake for eighteen.

* Medication induced sleepiness is vaguely different from depressed sleeping. On the meds I just…can’t stay awake. Before I went on them i just slept so I didn’t have to deal with things. PROGRESS!…?

Week 3: See week two. Add more sleeping. My apartment starts to resemble a frat house because cleaning isn’t happening. I subsist on takeout when I eat at all. Regular bathing is…irregular.

Somehow, I’m slightly worse off than I was before I started meds. Questioning all my life choices at this point.

Week 4: Combine week two and three and sprinkle it with general apathy for…everything…which isn’t really new but slightly different. Apathy is a big part of my depression but there is usually a thing first where I care about every little thing SO MUCH (hello, anxiety) before that suddenly comes to a point and then I’m like…oh whatever who cares. Everything sucks and I don’t care. I have no emotions about anything. Ever. So…I guess I’m just skipping a step. Yay…?

Week 5: The beginning of week five saw my follow-up visit with my doctor which was uneventful and a waste of time. Okay fine I needed to go but ugh. Doing things is dumb.

Me: Um so…everything is fine except I’m narcoleptic maybe? And…I don’t really hate my life anymore because I just…don’t…feel…stuff? Like…at all?

Doctor: You’re a weirdo because this medication usually makes people hyper and focused.

Me: So…I even suck at taking medicine.

THE END

Okay not really but I was given the choice to switch to something else but I was like “nah” and she was like “right choice” and I was like “this wasn’t worth $40” and the front desk was like “Lol whatevs. Pay up” and that was kind of the end of it.

Still avoiding nearly all social interactions. Things like my mom’s birthday take days to rally for mentally. Everything else gets skipped. I find other people exhausting, and I’m pretty sure no one cares about me/hates me anyway. I spend all my free time watching HGTV. This…isn’t new.

Week 6:

Sunday: I woke up with purpose. I felt NEW! I jumped out of bed and did laundry, meal planned for the week, went grocery shopping, cleaned my house, SCRUBBED ALL THE THINGS. Last night when I crawled into bed I was exhausted for good reason.

And then I tossed and turned all night. barely getting any sleep.

*sigh*

Today: I woke up exhausted. Had a couple of normal hours and then…the bottom dropped out. I cried at my desk (thats more like it), then I got super “I wanna punch a wall” angry (this feels familiar), and then I just wanted to be at home in bed hiding under a blanket and not talking to anyone ever again.

Basically…nothing much has changed at all.

It’s a journey.

Next time – Discussing Your Depression with Friends and Family: Wait…How Do I End Up Comforting Everyone Else?